The family visited a nearby park this weekend. Not any park, for there are plenty of ordinary parks here. There’s one just on the other side of our back fence, with streams and frogs and snakes and birds and everything except beer bottles and bears. No, we went to the Backus Heritage Conservation Area.

The place has a pretty good web site, for the year 1995 at least, but don’t let that hold you back. If you’re in the area north of Lake Erie, and you’re into living museums, it deserves a visit. Why? Let me count the ways.

First, the site is lovely. A thick natural carolinian forest covers the bulk of the area, so there is plenty of variety of plants and animals. Much farther to the north, one would see more boring pine and fewer neat creatures.

Second, the interpretive center. I fie upon the term “interpretive center”, as it reminds me of hippies trying to give LSD-inspired names to stuff. This one looks like a simple little old building from the outside. On the inside however, modern displays and facilities hide, as the building is wider and deeper than it appears. Dozens of of nicely-preserved stuffed animals illustrated the content.

Third, the mill. There is an amazingly preserved water-powered flour/grain mill building here. It was used since the late 1700s, apparently. It’s four stories tall, and unlike all other similar structures I’ve seen, it was completely open to visitors, and all the machines / belts / gears / chutes were all still there. The main waterwheel/driveshaft assembly seemed in good enough shape to actually activate, if one were to adjust the water bypass gates just beside the building. The gate control was also reachable to visitors (though it was not labeled).

Fourth, the “pioneer village” type buildings nearby. These were all fully open to visitors, nothing but storage areas roped off, all the artifacts could be gently handled in situ, if a visitor were to lose her self-restraint. There was no museum nazi to spy on us and shriek “Put that thing down or vee veell let loose the dogs, schnell!”. They assumed that we were trustworthy enough to be around a ton of fragile multi-century-old stuff without stealing or breaking it. What a great spirit. I’m glad they haven’t been burned badly enough to shut this amazing access down.

So, if you want to step back into the past, see real objects and machines, up so close that you could use it all, but will keep your vandalism urges under wraps, then go go go.